I Was Wrong
by Poptart22
Summary: After everything they've been through, Elena starts to finally accept that she has feelings for Damon; but of course nothing ever works out perfectly, there's going to be bumps along the way. Damon/Elena and a little bit of Klaus/Caroline.
1. Gonna Get Over You

**Disclaimer: I don't own TVD. **

**A/N-First off: This story has taken over my head, but for people who read my PLL fic, I promise I haven't abandoned it. I'm slowly working on the next chapter. I thought maybe if I worked on this first, my inspiration would come back. It's working ;) **

**Just a quick explanation; when writing this, a certain song inspired each chapter, hence the title names. This takes place somewhere mid season three, and Damon and Elena have not kissed yet. Yeah, so this is my first multi chapter story for TVD, hope I do the characters justice. Thanks for reading. **

**Gonna Get Over You- Sara Bareilles**

"_I simmer then I burn for a someone_

_The wrong one"_

Elena couldn't shake the weird trance like feeling she was in. She had just broken up with Stefan. She had actually uttered the words "I don't think I can do this anymore." She'd tried to ignore the pain in his eyes when she said it, but she couldn't deny that it was there. Then again, what was worse, playing pretend while her feelings faded fast, or being honest with Stefan – and herself?

Things hadn't been the same in a while; the silences were awkward and the conversation was strained. Truth be told it seemed like what had used to be her 'always' had completely fizzled. Lies and deceit did that to a relationship.

In a world where the supernatural played such a huge role, dishonesty was not a feasible option.

Elena needed to be able to make her own decisions, and Stefan's constant habit of omitting the truth (Whether it was for 'her own benefit' or not) made it hard to make the right ones.

Damon had mentioned something along those lines the other day, but now that she thought about it, Elena had been too preoccupied to listen properly.

Just the thought of the older Salvatore brother made her blush. She and Damon had grown so close while Stefan had been with Klaus being all... _Ripper._

Damon's company was something she relied on now. It was her constant. _He_ was her constant.

At a time like this, maybe walking around Mystic Falls wasn't the best idea. Elena was zoned out, lost in her thoughts. She felt guilty, because even though she had broken up with Stefan, she knew that it hadn't been one hundred percent because of her feelings slipping away. Part of her knew that Damon had something to do with it.

More of a part than she'd like to admit.

_Everything is so damn confusing._

On one hand, she always had thought it would be Stefan. She was completely and utterly convinced that the sweet, understanding Salvatore brother was the one for her. The one who eventually she would spend forever and a day with.

But Damon was always tantalizingly out of her reach. Always tempting her, drawing her in with his mysterious allure. Over the summer her preconceived notions had fallen away, and maybe so had some of the walls around her heart.

She let him in and saw that he was so much more than she thought he was.

There had been increasing instances where she had caught him sneaking a glance at her; the kind of looks reserved for intense situations and stolen moments. Eventually these glances had turned from making her genuinely uncomfortable to making her uncomfortable in a good way.

Soon enough Elena found herself sneaking looks of her own, but somehow she managed to convince herself that they were innocent... Simply sparked by curiosity.

Then Stefan came back and her feelings for Damon were pushed away. To a point. One night while lying in Stefan's arms, she realized she was trying to get over Damon. She hadn't been fully aware that she was into Damon enough to need to rationalize getting over him.

Stefan had been everything and more when he came back, but even though he was everything she had wanted that summer, but that had been the summer when all that mattered was finding and bringing Stefan back.

She could no longer ignore the flurry of butterflies that made their presence known when Damon walked in the room. Elena found herself making sure she looked good before barging into his room, making sure to prolong their playful banter out as long as possible, and her newfound problem of the words coming out wrong when she talked to Damon was starting to become a problem.

Slowly but surely her feelings for Stefan were burning out, like the left over coals from a fire. Elena was tired of waiting for the fire to go out by itself, so she took matters into her own hands.

She knew she loved Stefan, but as she walked down the street that was a few blocks from Caroline's house, when Elena asked herself if she was _in_ love with Stefan, she actually said 'no' out loud.

Still she knew the answers were no different with Damon. Or at least her mind had convinced her heart as such.

At this moment nothing was making total sense. Elena needed to talk with someone about her situation. She had to tell someone about Stefan, and about Damon. She liked Damon. That much was clear, but it was the blurry line in between how much that was the problem.

"I like Damon." To say she had no feelings for Stefan and feelings for Damon out loud felt weird; unnatural even. But the warmth in her stomach said differently.

It was confusing, all the feelings she had for the Salvatore brothers... Eventually they muddled into one big ball of uncertainty.

"Good to know, I'm rather fond of you too." His voice made her jump out of her skin. Internally, Elena thanked whatever higher power had made Damon make his presence known before Elena added "a lot more than a friend," like she'd intended to.

Damon had his camaro parked on the side of the road beside a mailbox. There were a million other places to mail a goddamn letter in Mystic Falls, but of course he had to use that one. Thankfully he didn't press on about Elena's mutterings.

"Everything all right? Elena? You look really out of it." Concern flickered in his blue eyes.

Elena bit her lip, trying to keep herself together. Seeing Damon had pushed her to that point of overwhelming emotions where everything was becoming a bit too much to handle. Her actions. Her feelings. Her decisions. All were overwhelming her mind.

Her thoughts were going a thousand miles a minute now, but she managed to choke out the fact that she had broken up with Stefan. She was waiting for the sarcasm or the witty comment to come, but it never did.

Damon stood there in his trademark leather jacket and jeans, looking something between concerned and torn. He looked the same way Elena felt; neither of them was quite sure how to proceed. She could see that Damon's body was tense, like he was on the verge of comforting her, but the little angel on his shoulder was whispering in his ear not to do it.

God, Elena wished he would. She could feel that leather mould to her body, feel his arms grasping her tightly. She could bury her face in his shirt, smell that oh so familiar Damon smell of cologne, bourbon and something she couldn't quite place, but reminded her uniquely of him.

But she knew that would be unfair. Hopping from one brother to the other like that. She wasn't Katherine, and never hoped to follow in her bitchy ancestor's footsteps.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

She just nodded, taking another deep breath to calm herself down. "Not right now- but I will be."

"Do you want a ride home? I can drop you off on my way back to the boarding house."

Elena shook her head. "I was on my way to Caroline's, I'm almost there. I can walk." Spending time alone in the car with Damon was definitely not the best idea for her mental health right now. Unfortunately Damon was stubborn when it came to her.

"Don't be stupid Elena, I'll drive you."

She wanted to fight him, but she knew he would drag her kicking and screaming into the camaro if he wanted to. She sighed and slid in the passenger seat. Nervously she drummed her fingers on the door, unaware until Damon pointed it out. "You need anything at all?"

_Probably a couple shots of tequila and enough alcohol to knock out a bear._

Again, becoming Damon's new drinking buddy wasn't a good option. Most things involving Damon weren't good options, as Elena found she was beginning to trust herself a little less around him. She kept her eyes focused on the road, trying to not let everything get the best of her.

Just two minutes until they got to Carolines'. She could handle that.

It turns out two minutes of awkward silence feels like two hours of pure torture.

It dawned on Elena that she hadn't even told Caroline she was coming; the plan was to just show up out of the blue. Quickly she pulled out her phone and sent a text explaining her imminent arrival.

**Broke up w. Stefan. I need you . B at yours soon.**

As soon as she hit send, Damon hit a bump in the road as he turned into Caroline's street. Elena's phone slid out of her hand in onto the console of Damon's car. They reached for the phone at the same time, and just as Elena's hand closed around the phone, Damon's was there to meet it.

At the sudden contact, Elena yanked her hand away faster than she thought possible. Just as ungracefully, she tried to disguise it as a cough.

It was painfully obvious that Damon didn't believe her for a second when she looked up and met his ice blue eyes and his signature Damon Salvatore smirk. Immediately Elena felt herself go crimson red. _Shit._

"Now Elena, I'm gonna take a guess that all this cute jumpiness is because of the Stefan break up, so if I'm making you uncomfortable by being well... me, just say the word." He said as they pulled into Caroline's driveway.

Elena just sat there, staring, completely unsure of what to say to him.

"Because I can make things a whole lot more uncomfortable if you want me to." He whispered as he leaned forward. Elena literally stopped breathing he was so close. She could see every detail of his face, the stubble that was beginning to poke forward from his previously clean shaven face, the lines of his lips. She could smell his breath.

Fuck the tequila and drinks, this was intoxicating enough.

She could feel the knot in her stomach as she leaned forward just a bit more. God did she ever want to kiss him. She licked her lips and looked him in the eyes.

This was not good for her, in such an emotionally unstable state; but then her distaste for Katherine came back and she snapped back to reality, shoving Damon as hard as she could away. "Dick."

She unbuckled herself clumsily, still a bit freaked out by just how close she'd been to pressing her lips to his. "I was just kidding Elena. You seemed sad, so I'm trying to cheer you up by being obnoxious. That's how our relationship works, right?"

"Ha ha." The sarcasm was put on thick. "Look, I'll text you later or something. Caroline's expecting me. You can be your normal ass like self then, okay?" She quickly jumped out of the car and slammed the door and walked to Caroline's door as fast as she could without looking like she was running.

She could almost taste his lips, or what she imagined them to taste like. Bourbon, blood, and a hint of something that she could never place when it came to him. She had to will herself to keep walking to the Forbes house. She couldn't even afford a quick look back to him, thanking him for the ride he'd given her.

While she waited for Caroline to answer the door, she shot Damon a text, feeling bad for being so rude when she left. He was trying to help, in his own Damon-ish way.

**Thanks for the ride. & Sorry for slamming the door.**

She sent the text just as he was pulling out of the driveway.

"Elena, sweetie!" She heard Caroline say as the front door swung open. "I'm so sorry! How are you holding up with everything?"

Elena hugged her best friend as she watched the blue camaro roll down the street. She made sure Damon was out of vampire hearing range before pulling back and looking Caroline straight in the eyes. She exhaled deeply. "I am so fucked."

**I have the next 10 chapters written, so I'll update whenever. I tried this way because if you've read 5:00 you'd know I'm the worst updater ever. Forgive me 5:00 readers T-T If you could drop a review it'd be lovely. :)**


	2. Drunk

**Drunk- Ed Sheeran**

"_I'm sat here wishing I was sober,_

_I know I'll never hold you like I used to."_

The world was slipping away; the edges were fuzzy, and thoughts were garbled. None the less, Damon knocked back another shot of vodka. One hundred and forty five years and the burn was barely dulled as the liquid slid down his throat. The blurriness of his surroundings made it easier though, so he downed another two before leaning forward on his barstool, resting his head in his hands. It didn't matter how many shots he had to throw back, so long as they numbed the pain.

He thought being in love with Katherine had been hard. He thought that missing her for almost a century and a half would be the worst pain he could and would ever have to go through. Now that he looked back upon it, that was nothing compared to this. Being in love with someone, knowing that you can't have them, that there would be no hope for them.

And he knew that he would never be her choice.

He knew that loving someone you could never be with was the worst pain in the world.

He was always second; his father saw him as no more than a disappointment, a disgrace to the family, Katherine loved Stefan more than him and no matter what, Elena would always be in love with Stefan. His little brother, the good Salvatore, the one everyone picked. He knew that no matter how much Elena was sure of their little 'break up', it wouldn't last. He gave it a week tops, before they were back together again.

Why couldn't it be him for once? Why was he always the one subject to the hurt and pain?

It was tempting to flick the switch, leave his humanity behind him. Oh, it was so tempting. But somehow his humanity felt tied to Elena. The human he was so in love with. Damon scoffed aloud, bringing his head up to order another round for himself. For now, alcohol would have to do.

He signalled the bartender. " 'Nother please." He said, his eyes burning with a swirl of emotions, all muddled by the vodka.

"I'm sorry buddy, but you've had your fill. I can't give you anymore. Bartender's judgement whether to serve you or not."

If Damon's buzz hadn't already been shot dead by his roaming thoughts of Elena, then this would have done the trick. Damon leaned forward, casually grabbing the man by his shirt. "Listen 'buddy,' you're going to shut up and pour me however much I want." He roughly released the man, pushing him slightly over the bar. Scared mindless, but unable to say anything he nodded blankly, grabbing another couple of shot glasses from underneath the bar.

A few months ago Damon wouldn't have hesitated to kill the guy on the spot. Of course now he couldn't, because of her. He was trying to be the bigger person and all.

He slammed down two out of three glasses, now empty. Licking his lips, a thought came to his mind. Humans were feeble and disposable. Humanity was overrated. Being a bad ass vampire was not. But he didn't mean it. If humans were disposable, then so was she; he knew she was anything but.

No matter what he appeared to be, regardless of how guilt free, cocky or proud Damon had seemed about his actions, he had never flipped his switch. No matter how badly he thought he wanted to turn it all off, his humanity was what kept him feeling well, human. It was what made him feel as close to being what he wanted so desperately, even after all these years.

Until now. Recently he had been considering seriously letting it all go. Idly, Damon swirled his finger around the brim of the shot glass that still had some liquor in it Everything felt pretty good in that moment, courtesy of about twenty three shots of straight vodka. Too bad it was temporary. But no humanity, no feelings, he would feel good about everything. There would be no guilt, no pain, no constant reminders of his past failures and his present let downs nagging him in the back of his mind.  
Maybe he would regret it tomorrow, maybe not. Right now, his humanity was getting in the way, and it sounded like one hell of a good idea to flick it off.

It felt like a part of his conscious, and even while trying to suppress it, the tiny part of him that allowed him to feel fought back; it fought hard, refusing to go down without a fight. But slowly and surely, things were slipping away, and not because of the alcohol. Even his inhibited emotions were slipping, becoming as fuzzy and frazzled as his mind. The ache was dulling, the remorse fading, and it felt good. Damon felt drunk as hell, but good.

And then he heard the door to the Grill open, and a familiar laugh ring through the air. The laugh that he had heard so many times, the one that ripped his heart open and gave his humanity a second wind, pushing it through every effort he'd put into flicking the switch off. The weight of his emotions came back all at once, rushing through the restrictive barriers that hadn't even held them for a minute.

Damon watched as Elena walked in with Bonnie and Caroline, talking animatedly about some incident that that happened in second period. He almost decided to meet her eyes, but as her gaze landed on him sitting at the bar, he looked away. His focus landed on the last shot, and he sent it down his throat so quickly he could barely feel the burn.

He got up, stumbling slightly. Maybe the booze hadn't done much for his mind, which was still running rampant with the problems he had been trying to escape, but as far as his physical abilities he was about as capable as a cripple. He tried to walk as straight as he could through the restaurant, unavoidably passing the table that the girls had situated themselves at.

It took everything to convince his inebriated mind that looking back was a bad idea.

As the door pushed open and the cool air hit him, Damon stopped for a second. Home. He was going to go home and try to sleep it off. And not do anything rash, like kill people. Killing people was something that he was trying to avoid... By he couldn't remember why exactly. He was a vampire. Vampires kill people. But he wasn't supposed to? Why kind of bullshit was that?

"Damon?" He heard someone call from behind him.

Of right. Elena bullshit. The brunette ran in front of him, putting her hands up to try and stop him from going anywhere. As if that would help.

"You're drunk." She stated simply.

He flashed his signature sarcastic smile. "Can you tell?"

"Obviously."

He took a couple steps forward until Elena was physically holding him back. "Elena, unless you want to see a very drunk, very pissed off vampire, I suggest you go back to your little friends." He spit out. Now was not the time. She took a few steps backwards, but was still blocking his way. Damon noticed how she was wearing her 'concerned friend Elena' look. If there was a time when he wanted her to not give a shit, it was right now.

When he didn't offer up an explanation, her concern only depended, and it was apparent. She crossed her arms and furrowed her eyebrows, not intending to budge. Of course she was going to be difficult.  
The 'concerned friend' look indicated as much. Damon scoffed. The friend. That was all he was ever going to be to her.

He should've kissed her in the car earlier that day. God he'd wanted to. But then she'd be upset with him, after all she'd just broken up with Stefan. He _mustn't _upset Elena. He was the only one allowed to be upset.

"Damon, what's wrong with you? I saw you like, six hours ago and you were fine."

He laughed internally at the reverse of their situation. Now she was perfectly fine and he well, wasn't doing so well.

Why couldn't he just go home and pass out like he wanted? No, he had to be tortured by his demons, the most prominent one standing defiantly in front of him.

He rolled his eyes. For a split second he thought about dishing out a snarky response, but something told him that he would regret his decision tomorrow morning. Instead Damon did the most logical thing and ran home, leaving Elena in the dust.

It certainly wasn't the most gentlemanly thing he could have done to the girl he was in love with, but that didn't bother him. He wanted to lie down and escape the world; escape her, his brother, the hell he had so inevitably been thrust into as punishment from something he must have done in a previous life.

Stefan wasn't home, thankfully. Damon was not going to be able to tolerate a lecture about getting drunk from Saint Stefan, the prime example of self control. He kicked his shoes off at the door, knowing that if he made a mess for himself to clean up the next morning it would only aggravate him further. He trudged up the stairs, which still had the faint smell of Elena, until the trail went the other direction into Stefan's room.

Lovely.

With much determination, Damon managed to hang up his jacket, slip off the black sweater he had on and pull on a pair of pyjama bottoms before crawling into bed. Normally he would have grabbed a book, but the world was swimming in front of him, and he highly doubted he could stay focused on the words without feeling nauseous. So he closed his eyes.

As he drifted off into a land of blackness, free of all emotion, Damon felt thankful for the fact that vampires healed quickly; otherwise he would have had one hell of a hangover the next day.

**Thanks so much for the reviews guys, you all are lovely :) Hope you like the chap, I'll put a new one up in a few days. **


	3. I Knew You Were Trouble

**I Knew You Were Trouble – Taylor Swift**

"_Cause I knew you were trouble when you walked in,_

_So shame on me now."_

Elena furiously tapped her pencil against her math textbook, reading over the same paragraphs that she'd been looking over for the past half hour. She was in that state of mind where no matter how many times you read the words over, nothing actually seems to sink in. Over and over she read the same sentence, not in any way helping her with the five remaining trigonometry questions left in her homework.

Part of her thought that maybe she could just leave them and do them the next day at lunch, but the better part of her knew that Caroline would most likely want to do something at lunch, leaving her no time to finish anything. Lately Caroline had been spending her lunch ranting to Elena and Bonnie about her boy problems; how her relationship with Tyler was tanking and how Klaus was starting to be actually... kind of sweet.

Meanwhile, Elena had boy problems of her own. Ever since she'd seen Damon drunk almost a week prior at the Mystic Grille, he'd been parading around her mind like he owned the place; her mind always seemed to drift back to the eldest Salvatore brother. Even if she and Stefan were on over, she still felt remarkably guilty.

The name _Katherine_ kept bouncing around in her head, taunting her.

_"I'm tired of this Stefan; the constant __lies, the fighting. We never talk anymore, and when we do it's to argue over something."_

"_What do you want me to say? I'm sorry for trying to keep you safe? Because I'm not Elena, I'm keeping you alive!"_

"_I'm tired of people making decisions for me, Stefan! I'm tired of fighting with you, I'm tired of-" She stopped mid sentence, because Elena hadn't been expecting for the words to tumble out. _

"_Tired of what, Elena?" _

_She'd already started. She knew the words were the truth, they'd been swirling around her brain for a while now, there was no use in denying herself the truth any longer. Stefan deserved the truth as well. "I'm tired of us being like this Stefan. I- I don't think I can do this anymore." Her eyes brimmed with tears. The words were true, but seeing Stefan _break_ like he did stung like hell. _

_But he just nodded, breathing deeply. "I've kind of been getting that from you for a while Elena. If you- If you don't want this anymore, I can respect that."_

She could tell it was killing him to deal with it like this, and she respected him for doing so, but the mask was a feeble one; it was too weak for how well she knew him. "I need some time for myself, and you do too." She wanted to stay friends with Stefan, but she knew if she uttered the cliché line, it would be too much. 

"_I'm sorry." She whispered._

Stefan still hadn't reached out to her, or anyone for that matter. She assumed that Damon was keeping an eye on him, since he hadn't contacted her either; thankfully Elena took this as a sign that the population of neighbouring towns was still safe, and the population of bunnies in the forest in Mystic Falls were still the ones to be worried.

Sooner than she'd intended, Elena's thoughts drifted back to Damon.

She'd thought maybe doing her homework would help, possibly getting her mind off the situation at hand, but clearly that wasn't helping. A half hour and all she could do was go over their small conversation outside the Grille over and over again, analyzing every detail. She was unsure why he was so upset; she couldn't think of anything she'd said recently to upset him.

I mean, she had just of broken up with Stefan, shouldn't he have been happy? Then again, this was Damon and he was rather... Unpredictable. Their conversation in the car was proof enough of that. "Oh my god." She leaned forward in her hands, thinking about how close he'd been to her in the car. She could smell his breath, laced with a hint of bourbon.

Shoving the math textbook off her lap, Elena bounced off her bed. Her bedroom was a mess, having been neglected since she'd spent a lot of time at her friend's house recently. Cleaning was a perfectly monotonous task, suiting her need for routine and an empty mind perfectly.

Slowly but surely the disaster that had been Elena's room righted itself again, old pairs of jeans thrown down for laundry, blankets folded, dresser cleaned, and sweaters folded and put away in the bottom drawer where they'd been located since she was younger.

Unfortunately there was an empty space in the drawer, patiently waiting for the return of the pale blue sweater Elena had worn over to the boarding house weeks ago. She wasn't exactly eager to go and grab it, after having told Stefan that they were over and running into Damon completely smashed that night as well. If she placed her bets right, neither Salvatore brother would be in fit shape to talk.

If she thought about it, there were a few things missing from her room that had found temporary residence in the Salvatore household. Sweatpants, a few CDs, probably some make up.

Now that her room was back to its (almost) perfectly clean state, Elena was once again without something to preoccupy her mind, and on cue, Damon Salvatore strode cockily into her mind. His drunken state was completely obliterated; her mind was fixed on his normal arrogant self. Normally she would've found this extremely annoying, but all of a sudden his presence, even if it was just in her head, was comforting.

Even trying to clear her head, she couldn't get past more than half a sentence instructing her how to carry out the trig problem.

Random things came into her mind, such as why Caroline was so opposed to Klaus, even if he was a bit of a mass murderer. But he was always there for her, she could count on him and he would never betray her. So what if he'd killed a few thousand people in his day? People could change. Who they were didn't dictate who they would be in the future, or who they were at that moment.

Elena began to realize that maybe her thoughts weren't on Klaus and Caroline, but on one a bit more... personal.

"Knock knock." A voice said. Elena's head snapped up to see Damon striding into her room. It took her a second to deduce that yes, this was the real Damon, and not the one that had been buzzing in her ear all day.

"I come bearing gifts." He said, the sweater that she was missing proffered in his hands. Warily, she took the sweater from his hands and tucked it away without saying a word. Inside, Elena could feel her stomach twisting and turning because of Damon's presence. She could feel his icy gaze burning into the back of her head, so in an attempt to avoid him she crossed the room and sat on her bed, pulling out her trig textbook in what she knew was a futile attempt to ignore him.

He paced idly around the room, fully aware of Elena's distance. His patience annoyed her; for once all she wanted was to be left alone with her thoughts. But then again, she wanted to be near him as well. "Damon, do you know how to do trig?"

He looked over her shoulder, quickly scanning the textbook. "Little known fact: I'm actually pretty good at math. I can teach you if you want." He held out his hand, asking for the textbook to explain to her. Instead Elena took a giant leap of faith and patted the spot next to her on her bed.

When Damon gave her a questioning look, she stated that she was just comfortable already and didn't want to move.

Twenty five minutes later, Elena had somehow successfully finished four out of the five problems she had left. After spending a good five minutes being distracted by Damon's proximity, she found that he actually knew what he was talking about and was a good teacher. She'd picked up the method quickly, and after a few tries she'd gotten the questions right.

But now she was focusing on just how hard her heart was pounding as Damon explained the difference the last question had from the rest. Thankfully she was distracted from staring at him rather than the problem when her phone buzzed.

Before she could grab it, Damon snatched it.

"Ah, ah, ah, no phones while class is in session, Ms. Gilbert." He quickly typed in the pass code to her phone, (She wasn't even aware that he knew it) and read the text out loud.

"Tyler can't make the Lockwood ball tom. night, he's got to go help some new hybrids. Cue Klaus asking me to be his date. 'Mate's only of course'... Should I say yes? I mean you keep saying that I should give him a shot..."

Elena broke out in hysterics at Damon's Caroline impersonation, and even more so at his bad fake British accent. "Damon, give it back!" She squealed while trying to grab the phone out of his hands. Instead he rolled away faster than Elena could react to.

"Of course you should go with him." He spoke aloud as he typed. "You two would be adorbs." He narrowed his eyes at Elena before rolling them sarcastically. To hear Damon say 'adorbs' sent her into another fit of laughter.

"So why are you Team Klaus all of a sudden? I mean the guy has killed enough people, not including his numerous attempts to kill you. Personally I don't think you should be sending off your best friend to canoodle with him at a party." Damon paced around the room, throwing the phone back and forth while Elena assumed he waited for a reply.

Recently Elena had been vouching for Klaus more for her own personal reasons than anything else. Now that she thought about it, Elena shouldn't be trying to help him be happy at all. In fact he deserved anything but happiness, for all the people he had killed. Jenna came to mind.

But a thought crossed her mind as she remembered that in the past few weeks not a single person had come to face harm at Klaus' hands, as far as Caroline was aware. (One day at lunch she mentioned the fact to Bonnie and Elena, disgusted the idea that Klaus thought that _not_ killing someone was something to be proud of.) Hey, at least the guy was trying.

Besides, people shouldn't be judged by who they were in the past, they should be judged by how those experiences shaped who they are today.

"Recently I've been all about the whole 'turn a new page' thing." Elena grimaced uncomfortably as he looked at her in a way that said he knew she wasn't telling the whole truth. _Well, the truth is that it was inspired by him._ Not that she was ever going to admit that. "Anyways, are you going?"

He snorted. "To the Lockwood's? Oh yes, because as if I haven't endured enough of those painfully torturous events. It's always the same thing; I get there, have to fix a problem, deal with some drama, then try not to get killed or attempt to kill someone." Elena was surprised as he walked over to her bed again, completely uninvited and fell back onto it, staring up at the ceiling. "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Elena took a deep breath. It was probably about time she started taking her own advice. "Well... to shake things up how about you go with me this time?" Again, Elena could feel her heart pounding erratically, and she hoped that Damon wouldn't be listening hard enough to realize.

The look of surprise on his face was evident, but quickly he reeled it in and put on his game face. That's when Elena knew she was really going to get it.

Damon sat up and looked at her in the eyes. "Are you asking me to be your date, Ms. Gilbert?"

Elena felt her mouth go dry. She opened her mouth to speak, but found nothing but air come out. She had to push herself to remember what retort she was going to use. "If you want to call it that, then I guess." Damn. That was a lot less snappy then what she had thought of in the first place.

Damon's eyes were looking at her ferociously. The tension was unbearable. Elena thought the car had been bad, but this was a thousand times worse. It was like each time she got near Damon it piled up, and she knew that eventually the pipe was going to burst, but she vowed that tonight would not be that night.

Elena's eyes flickered over to the door, which conveniently Damon had shut after he handed Elena the sweater. _Bad things happen behind closed doors._

"Hm. I'll only go if you ask me to be your date." His eyes glinted maliciously at the word.

She laughed, and even though she tried to make it sound genuine, the nervous edge was evident. The confidence that had manifested itself in her mind earlier had vanished, and was now replaced with anxiety and doubt.

"Do you _want_ to be my date?" She made sure to phrase the question to address him directly.

In a flash his lips were at her ear. Not what she was expecting in the slightest. "I think you know the answer to that question, but how about you ask it properly?" Elena let out a frustrated sigh. He could be such an ass sometimes, always making sure to get the most out of an opportunity like this. But it's not like that would have changed her next question.

He pulled away, looking awfully smug with himself. Elena looked him right in the eyes, not willing to let him get the best of her. _Fine._ _Two can play at this game. _Then the courage was back.

She leaned close to him, one of her hands placed on his cheek. Her other hand wrapped slowly around the nape of his neck, and she whispered in his ear. "Mr. Salvatore, will you be my date to the Lockwood's?" Her mouth lingered there for a few seconds before she pulled away. This close to him, Elena could tell that he had stopped breathing. She looked down at his hand which was white from clutching the comforter of her bed. It looked like he was trying just as hard as her to restrain himself.

She looked up from underneath her eyelashes, giving him what he had once referred to as 'her doe eyes' turned up to full force. If she was subject to deal with his devilish glares, then he was going to have to deal with hers.

"I'll pick you up at seven." His voice was shaky. Truthfully, Elena enjoyed the power she was holding over him. It wasn't for a couple seconds of unregistered silence passed by before Elena realized that Damon had been staring at her lips for an obscene amount of time.

All that courage was gone now, she was frozen, stuck in one of those moments where she was chanting _'Do it. Do it. Do it.'_ over and over in her head. When neither of them moved for at least thirty seconds, Elena leaned forward just the slightest. She didn't want to physically move, because that would be rather obvious. Then again, Damon was a vampire and would notice if she moved a hairs breadth.

When she pried her eyes away from the lips she'd been so focused on for the past few days, she noticed the space between them drastically reduce. Talk about a hair, because that's all the space that was left between them. She had to barely move before she would be kissing him.

"Wear something pretty." He whispered, and just as Elena had made her decision, he was gone. At least he had disappeared in time to miss her falling face first onto the spot that he'd previously been sitting in. _Oh my god._ Her heart panged, but she wasn't sure if it was guilt or sadness, or a mix of both. _Oh my god. _She almost just kissed Damon.

_OH MY GOD._ He'd known. He'd baited her into it. He'd been completely aware of what her intentions were, and he'd done it on purpose just to make his big exit. Just when she thought she had finally beaten him at his own game.

Then she felt the blood drain from her face.

And now he was completely aware that she wanted to kiss him.

He brain was a bit fuzzy, but Elena managed to recall a quote that had resonated in her.

"You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something good will come of it."

Insane? Check. She was now going to a ball with Damon as her date.

Embarrassing? Double check. Her _date_ was now aware that she wanted to kiss him. More than kiss him. A lot more than kiss him.

Now she had to play the waiting game for the 'something good.' For some reason, Elena felt like that box was going to stay unchecked for a while. Most things tended to work like that for her, but hey, that was life.

She felt her phone vibrate and silently pled that it wasn't Damon.

**Said yes to Klaus. He has one chance. If he messes up, that's it, I'm done. No second chances at all.**

Caroline with Klaus and Elena with Damon, what was the world coming to? Insanity was the most feasible option, but hopefully that wasn't the case.

One thing Elena was sure of was that she was getting herself into a lot of trouble, but when the idea of being able to press her lips to Damon's crept into her mind, maybe the trouble was going to be worth it.

Maybe.

**Thanks for reading guys, if you could leave a review, it would seriously make my day. Also onerepublicgirl, your reviews so far have made me smile, thank you! And thanks to everyone else too! :) xx**


	4. Down

**Down – Jason Walker**

"_And I'm tired of waiting,_

_Waiting here in line, hoping I'll find what I've been chasing."_

He was tired of slip ups. The split second he would catch her staring; or see her pull her hand away at the last second. Over a week she'd been broken up with Stefan and now Damon was noticing the 'slip ups' were becoming deliberate.

Now he was walking in her door in a tux because he was her date to the Lockwood's. Naturally he walked in unannounced. When was the last time he'd knocked on her door? Probably never, and he wasn't about to start just because he was her escort to yet another Mystic Falls dance.

Damon had never been so nervous for anything in his life. His hands were fidgety and his breaths were shallow, because this was not a slip up. This was real.

He'd left as soon as the decision flickered in her eyes, as she moved just a fraction of an inch closer. He decided that he couldn't do that anymore. Taunt her. Because now the taunting was going somewhere and the taunting, flirty advances were working, and he wasn't sure what to do about it.

He made his way up the stairs faster than he should have, but he couldn't wait. When he peeked into her room, Elena stood in front of her mirror, trying to zip up the back of her dress. Damon's jaw almost dropped; she looked absolutely stunning. She was wearing a sky blue lace dress, cut at just above the knee. Her hair was curled and pinned to the side, sweeping over her shoulder.

He barely had time to take her in before she noticed him leaning up against her door frame.

"You're early." She seemed flustered, trying to get ready on time. Quicker than he got up the stairs, Damon moved behind her; gingerly he zipped up the dress, lingering probably a little longer than he should have, his fingers gently running up her bare back.

God she looked beautiful.

Elena turned to look at him, and Damon's insides just about flipped. Would there be another 'accident', or something meaningful? At the moment he wasn't sure which one he was more afraid of.

"Thanks." She whispered.

They stayed from for a few seconds before Damon saw something flicker out of the corner of his eye. The time, changing to exactly seven o clock. "I'm precisely on time." He flashed her a smirk.

He could see each of her movements so clearly: the quick glance down to his lips that she retracted before even half a second, the nervous, shallow breaths that matched his.

It had never been like this between them before. The air was electric, and the possibilities scared the wits out of Damon. He could never show that of course, he was the cocky, sarcastic brother, he had to maintain his image after all.

Internally, he mulled over the curiosity if she wanted to kiss him as bad as he wanted to kiss her. It took all of his restraint not to bring his hand up to her face, and subconsciously he found his arm raising to do so.

To mask his intentions, he placed his hand on her waist. Still not as subtle as he would have liked, but still. "I might have bought you flowers. Seeing as I'm supposed to be your date and all." She playfully smacked him. He never planned on letting her live this day down. The day that Elena Gilbert acknowledged that Damon Salvatore was her date. "I left them in the car, but I'll go and grab them quickly, okay?" She nodded, and he took off at a human pace to his car.

It'd been a last minute decision, grabbing her flowers. He made sure to avoid roses though, because that seemed so... Romantic. Not his style at all.

As he slammed the door, a smash came from the house, and he ran inside, flowers in hand. Elena was on the ground in the kitchen, clutching her hand which was visibly cut. Shattered glass littered the floor; a large shard was covered in droplets of blood.

He dropped the bouquet of flowers on the island and knelt down beside her. "Shit Elena, why'd you try and pick it up?"

"I don't know Damon, shut up." His teeth were clenched together, and her eyebrows were furrowed together; it was obvious she was in a lot of pain.

"We have two options here, Elena. We can either get you to the hospital and try and not get any of your blood on that pretty dress while we do so, or I could heal you." Elena's eyes looked up at him, pleading. "If you just want to skip out on this whole fundraiser dance thing, I'm cool with it." As if that wasn't the biggest lie he'd ever told.

"Heal me." She said.

Damon nodded and pushed the sleeve of his tux up just above his wrist. Without any haste, he bit into his skin, puncturing it with his teeth. As soon as he drew blood, he sat next to Elena and proffered his arm towards her.

She looked at him for a second before sitting down beside him. Damon tried to stay focused as she drank from him. He was healing her, that's all. It wasn't meant to mean anything more than that. After what felt like an eternity, she brought her mouth off his hand. "Thank you." The wound on her palm was sealed up; the only evidence of anything being wrong was the blood stains down her arm and on the floor.

"No problem. I'll clean up this mess; you should probably wash your hands."

The perks of being a vampire came in handy; in what would have taken a human fifteen minutes; Damon did in about a minute. The glass was swept up and disposed of and the flowers were put in a vase. By the time Elena was back, the kitchen was mess free.

"They're beautiful Damon." She had a genuine smile on her face.

He stuck his arm out for her to grasp. "Shall we go?"

She grabbed his arm and nodded.

They'd decided to take her car after Damon put up a very convincing argument about how likely his camaro would get scratched if they took it. So they pulled in the driveway of the Lockwood's and parked the car, running a bit behind everyone else. By the looks of it, the majority of Mystic Falls was already inside.

Hopefully they had missed the speech that Carol was bound to give at the beginning of the event, but unfortunately that kind of luck wasn't common with them. The entire room was silent when they walked in, Elena's heels clicking against the floor.

Damon could feel her arm tighten around his, as they entered the room, completely silent except for the click of her heels. It was unsettling to have most of the eyes in the room on them. But still, Damon made sure to keep his head held high and gave Elena a comforting glance. She looked a little shaky and her breathing was erratic.

"It's okay." He mouthed at her.

While Carol went on with her speech, Elena focused on Damon, trying to make the fact that most likely every single person in town was now going to be judging her. Hopping between the Salvatore boys, how history repeats itself; even if almost nobody in the room was up to date on that kind of history. She closed her eyes, trying to shake the thought out of her mind. She was not Katherine. She never was going to be Katherine. None of this could bother her now. And with that, all her cares were pushed out the window.

Thankfully they caught the tail end of the introduction, and the music started up right after Mrs. Lockwood stepped down off the small stage.

Immediately, her gaze flew back to Damon.

"Care to dance?" His hand was offered forward, and Elena had never wanted to say yes to anything so badly in her life. Without missing a beat, she wrapped her hand in his as he led her to the dance floor.

It was evident of peoples surprise that she attended the Lockwood's with the older Salvatore on her arm, but the stares and whispers of the people around her didn't bother Elena; she felt comfortable being there with Damon.

The music started and so did the dance. Her hand found its way to Damon's shoulder and the other entwined itself with Damon's.

They twirled around the dance floor as if they were the only people in the world; her brown eyes were locked with his blue ones in a way that wasn't foreign to her. He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen, and being with him everything felt different.

She wasn't nervous with him; the butterflies in her stomach were reassuring rather than nerve racking. He hand fit perfectly with his and their steps were evenly matched, and truth be told she wished she could live in that moment forever; there was no reality outside the two of them, no impending conversations, no ex boyfriends or best friends to get in their way. It was just Damon and Elena, and nothing felt better.

"It's not polite to stare, Ms. Gilbert."

She shot him a questioning look as he pulled her in close, his lips at her ear, swaying back and forth to the music. "You've been staring at my lips for longer than necessary Elena, and I was starting to get the wrong impression." She swallowed hard; the comforting butterflies had come to life at a much more violent pace, making her mouth go dry.

But before she could say a single word, Damon's hands were off of her and she was in the arms of another man. It took her a second to forget the pressure that Damon's hand had put on her lower back and how well their hands fit together compared to this guy- Klaus.

"Good evening Elena."

She looked at him and for once she felt safe in his presence. Neither of them felt the need to overpower the other, and neither was threatened. It was like a pause from how things normally were.

"Good evening Klaus." She made sure to be polite; there was no reason to not be.

"I've been told that you're the reason why I'm here with Caroline tonight," Elena's attention started to drift as she saw Damon dancing with Caroline, both of them looking remarkably unhappy. Her jealousy was quelled when Damon looked up and winked, a knowing smirk oh his face. "And so I'd like to thank you."

Klaus thanking someone? It was time to wake up, because there was no way any of this was happening. "You're welcome."

He clearly caught the suspicious tone in her voice and then continued. "I have one shot with her, I know that. And I've done things in the past that I can't change, but I have the future to make it up to her."

Elena nodded. "I understand. Forgiveness is a hard thing to patch up more than once, and each time it gets harder and harder."

As they spun around, Klaus looked... Uneasy, for lack of a better word. "I'm sorry for any pain I've cause you, Elena. Especially Jenna and Stefan."

Elena almost froze in her tracks. This was so unlike him, she was worried that maybe he was leading her somewhere to kill her or something, but when no danger came to be, she shot him a sceptical glare.

He chuckled. "I'm not sorry for what I did, but I'm sorry that it caused you trauma. I did what had to be done, sorry love." It was a kind of apology, at best. Definitely not anything to convince her that Klaus was going to start hunting bunnies with Stefan and become the prime model of good vampire behaviour, but enough that it left her thinking about just how hard he was trying for Caroline. In his own way.

Elena nodded curtly. She had nothing to say to him really, how does someone respond to an apology for killing their aunt and causing their ex boyfriend to go off the deep end? It wasn't something you can find in a greeting card. While they danced in silence, a sly grin broke across Klaus' face, and he chuckled to himself quietly.

"What?"

With a quick nod of his head, he motioned towards Damon and Caroline. "You probably shouldn't have told her about your feelings for Damon before you told him. She's got a bit of a mouth on her, you know." His eyes were twinkling. "He's getting an earful."

Elena's eyes narrowed. "Liar."

"Oh really? Then you didn't 'really want to kiss him after the whole car incident thing?' because from the sounds of it you were going on about it in quite a lot of detail. And how you made Caroline go dress shopping with you for hours, 'not that she's complaining'."

Elena felt her face pale. "Shit. Want to tell her to stop talking?"

He shook his head as he twirled her around. "Not really, it's quite amusing." He stayed silent for another second, listening to their conversation. "It's alright; supposedly he thinks it's cute how you're getting all flustered around him."

"God sometimes I wish I had vampire hearing." She muttered to herself. It would come in handy at a time like this, when she wasn't sure just how much Caroline was embellishing her story.

Elena knew she had a few more seconds of dancing with Klaus before he was going to have to pass her on. It was obvious that the two pairs were drifting back together, eager to get back to their original partner, no matter if that wasn't the point. A few more beats.

"Thanks for the dance Klaus. Take good care of her."

_Five._

She knew what she was going to do.

_Four._

There was no turning back after this

_Three. _

She'd wanted this for so long.

_Two._

Take a breath.

_One._

Go.

She felt herself fall into Damon's arms, his hand finding its way back to the small of her back. But she didn't put her hand in his, as every other couple in the room did. Instead, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, tenderly, but with each second the fervour increased.

"Elena." Then she snapped out of it. Shit. She'd chickened out, and was completely zoned out while Damon had his hand held out at her, a knowing smile on his face. "Are we going to dance, or do you have something else in mind?" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. Every word coming out of his mouth sounded like a sexual innuendo.

So not helpful.

"Of course we are." She placed her hand in his again, and they stepped as one. There was something obviously different about this dance then their one earlier in the evening. Damon was holding her much closer than before. As in any closer and they'd probably be called out on public indecency. And their eyes were matched in a fierce battle, neither of them wanted to be the one to look away.

"So Caroline and I were talking..." He said nonchalantly, breaking eye contact with her and looking around the room. Cheater, he was going to try and blackmail her into confessing. "It explains an awful lot of what's been happening."

She looked at him, pursing her lips. "Do tell." She wasn't going to let him rattle her, or she wasn't going to show it at the very least.

"There's a reason why every time I come near you, your heart does this." He leaned in, so there was a sliver of space between them. Elena cringed as she felt her heart start beating faster and faster. "And why all of a sudden you're so eager to try and beat me at my own game." Slowly they stopped dancing, as Damon took his hand off Elena's waist and rested it on her cheek. "Let's face it Elena, I'm a much better tease than you. You slip up, you stare for that moment too long, you give your intentions away. I can have you begging for me if I wanted to." Elena swallowed hard, her mouth was completely dry, and her words were lost along with her capability to function properly. The funny thing was, he didn't even have to tease her into begging, she'd probably do it all on her own.

But if she told him would her replicate her affections? She'd hurt him so many times, watched his heart break with little regard for anything other than her own feelings. A part of her felt like she didn't deserve his love. She'd tainted his heart, but yet the look in his eyes said otherwise.

It was hypnotic, the way his eyes looked into hers.

"You two are clogging up the dance floor; can you go get a room or something? That level of eye sex is not suitable for the general public." Elena's head whipped around and saw Caroline and Klaus looking at them like they were animals in a zoo.

"Shut up Caroline." Elena said, as she took a step away from Damon, thankful for the breather. She had no doubt that within a few seconds eye sex would have been the least of Mystic Falls' worries. "I think we need to talk, Damon." He nodded and the two headed for the front doors to talk on the porch.

"Yeah right, Blondie." Damon muttered under his breath. When Elena inquired about it, he shrugged. "Her and Klaus are taking bets." When she gave him the look, he rolled his eyes. "Trust me, live in ignorance." He said as he held the door open for her.

The night was cool, with a warm breeze flowing through the air. Damon went and leaned up against one of the large pillars on the porch. "So what do you want to talk about?" Again his voice sounded as if he was implying something. It seemed like he was always implying something, but now Elena had just gotten used to ignoring it. "Caroline was telling me an awfully _interesting_ story."

She hated that he knew. Fully and completely aware of her infatuation with him. "Do you want to hear me say it?" She was annoyed now, it hadn't been Caroline's place to spill Elena's secrets to Damon. "Or you can just ask Caroline and I'm sure she'll tell you."

Damon's demure changed, it was no longer cocky and arrogant, based off his courage spurred with the knowledge of Elena's feelings. He pushed off the pillar with his back and brought himself close to Elena. God if he kept doing this Elena was going to get what she wanted, and quickly. Tenderly he brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. "Don't be angry, Elena. Like I said, I'm a much better tease than you. You slip up."

"So you knew."

He shrugged. "To an extent." His thumb traced gentle circles on her cheek.

"So did you figure out that I broke up with Stefan because of you? Because every time I was with him I was thinking of you? I'm tired of keeping things inside Damon. I'm tired of trying to control myself around you, but I'm afraid that if I don't things will get out of hand." Her hand held his in place, and she was sure he could tell how hard her heart was beating. He didn't say anything, but his expression said it all. The way he was looking at her made her heart swell. "And I don't want to be Katherine, I don't want to be the girl who had both the Salvatore brothers..."

"You. Are not. Katherine." He whispered. "You're selfless, and caring, and you will always put others before yourself. You are the exact opposite of Katherine, Elena. And it's because of these reasons that I love-"

His sentence was cut off when Elena pressed her lips to his. It wasn't a soft kiss, it was hungry and impatient; she'd been waiting for this moment for so long. Her hands knotted themselves in his hair, their tongues entangled with each other. In a flash she was pressed up against one of the pillars, and Damon was kissing down her neck, biting gently with his blunt teeth as he did so. He didn't draw blood but the action was enough to make Elena tug his hair roughly upwards, her lips aching for his own.

They flew apart when they heard a slow clap from the other side of the porch.

"Very good brother, looks like you're going for my seconds again!" Stefan was at the bottom of the porch, his expression was murderous. "And you're pulling an awful Katherine like move, if I do say so myself Elena. I mean it's been what, a week and you're already trying to get into Damon's pants?"

Damon stepped slightly in front of Elena, his body rigid and defensive. "Shut the hell up Stefan. Don't you have some bunnies to terrorize?"

"I was coming to talk to Elena, but you were too busy shoving your tongue down her throat, so I guess that's out the window." He shoved his hands in his pockets and turned to leave. "Katherine would be proud Elena, playing us both like this."

Tears brimmed in Elena's eyes; that was her biggest insecurity, being like Katherine, and Stefan had found her weakness and exploited it, for no other reason than revenge. But the words bounced around in her skull, echoing through her mind. What'd she been thinking? She couldn't be with Damon like _that_, after a week?

She felt broken inside; while she no longer was in love with Stefan, she did love him, and his words still stung.

"Hey, look at me Elena." Her eyes snapped up to Damon's. "Don't listen to him; he's a self righteous dick with way too much product in his hair. Green isn't his colour, alright? You are nothing like _her_, and if you were I wouldn't be in love with you like I am now. You are not Katherine." She tried to fight his point, but he shushed her and held her in his arms, patting the back of her head. "And it's been a lot longer than a week that you've had feelings for me Elena, he knows that. Don't let him get to you."

She nodded but let the tears fall anyways.

"I want to go home." She whispered.

Damon pulled back and wiped her tears away, placing a kiss on her forehead. "All right, I'll drive you home."

"No, I need to be alone right now Damon." Her breaths were shaky as she tried to regain her composure. "I'm sorry." She needed time to think, if her and Damon would be worth it. Could she risk hurting him again? She didn't want to put him in a bad position, she didn't want to be the second Petrova to completely break his heart.

"You're not going alone Elena, you're crying, and you shouldn't be driving if you're upset. Just let me drive you home."

She shook her head. "I'll be fine. I'll text you later, okay?" She quickly pecked his cheek and walked towards her car as fast as she could, trying to stop the tears from streaming down her face. By the time she got to her car she was a complete mess.

_Deep breaths._

Damon was still standing at the front door, looking at her while she started the car and pulled away. She needed just a few hours to herself and then she would phone him. Just enough time to regain her composure and get Stefan's venomous accusations out of her mind.

Then she'd tell him everything.

**So of course now that things are going kind of okay, stuff has to get a little rocky, in true Delena style. I can't wait for you guys to read the next chapter ;) Thanks so much for the reviews you guys, keep them coming, lemme know what you think! :)**


	5. Fix You

**Fix You – Coldplay **

"_When you lose something you can't replace,_

_When you love someone but it goes to waste."_

"There's been an accident." Damon could barely read Liz Forbes lips as she had to rush off on a call about a drunk driving accident. Silver car. Teenage, brown haired girl was the victim. Damon felt himself shatter. Fully and completely, everything felt shattered. His breaths were pained, his movements were excruciating.

He knew it was her. There was no doubt in his mind; he could feel it.

Immediately he sped off to the intersection Liz had mentioned while his own eyes were busy glazing over as he contemplated the meanings of the words. It didn't matter that there were already witnesses at the scene; he'd take care of them later.

The exclamations that were being directed at him were irrelevant. A man and a woman stood by their jeep, yelling God knows what at him.

But he didn't care. Her car was there, smoke rising from the hood. The front end of the car had been smashed in by a pick-up truck, completely mangled. She was in that car. She was alive in that car. He just had to get to her.

He pried open the door to see her there, covered in blood, head lolled back on the seat.

She was not dead.

She was not allowed to be dead.

The amount of blood everywhere said otherwise.

Violently, Damon pushed up against the front of the car, allowing her some space in the front seat. After all, she needed more space to breathe. But she wasn't. She wasn't breathing, and she was cold, except for the warm trickles of blood that were streaming down her face.

Damon couldn't breathe. The world was collapsing, he was sure of it. The world was coming to an end, he must have been staked, and was dreaming this in his last few seconds before he was damned. Staking must have felt better than this, because as he stroked the girl in the car's face, he realized it was no longer Elena. She used to be Elena, but now she was gone.

She was empty. He was empty.

The blood splattered everywhere in the car had no effect on him, he felt numb, all that mattered was Elena, who must have been playing a joke on him, because any minute she was going to snap her eyes open and kid with him, because she wasn't dead.

Only she didn't. She lay as lifeless as countless other corpses had, and after almost one hundred and fifty years the sight of a corpse was easy for Damon to identify. He felt like he was going to throw up, because as he leaned over the empty-Elena, he felt every ounce of humanity begging to leave his body. It was gone, taken along with her, but he fought to keep it for a few more moments.

He'd never kiss her again. One kiss, that's all they got? He hadn't gotten to wake up to her every morning and tell her how much he loved her like he'd planned to do. He hadn't gotten to make her dinner, ignoring the protests that would have come from her. He would never get to make fun of her again, or threaten to throw her over his shoulder when she was being her stubborn Elena Gilbert self.

He'd never see her smile or laugh for the rest of his life.

Her laugh. What did that sound like again?

Damon began to hyperventilate. This was bad. Could vampires go into shock? If they could then he was sure this was classified as such. The pain was back, everything felt crushing.

He wasn't going to be the only one who felt like this. Jeremy, Caroline, Matt, Bonnie, _Stefan._

All of them loved her; but he could only selfishly think about how they'd had the time to do so. To be able to remind her how much they cared about her. He'd never be able to get to.

The door of the black pick-up truck opened, and a twenty something year old guy hopped out, looking visibly intoxicated. Damon's head snapped up at the noise, and he felt the veins push through under his eyes. He made absolutely no effort to mask them.

Within seconds he could analyze that the guy had no damage. Concussion maybe, but his brute of a truck had delivered all the damage. Good thing too, because it gave him more to work with. It felt like his bones were on fire; nothing mattered anymore, not exposing himself or dealing with just another person to add to the death total of Mystic Falls.

He stalked over to the guy like a predator; he could feel his vampire instincts taking over. His humanity was still there of course, because the tremendous feeling of anguish had just been temporarily pushed aside for the blinding hatred that he had for this man.

He picked the guy up by the shirt, and pulled him up to eye level. The guy could barely keep himself conscious. His eyes were drooping, and not from the accident, but from the alcohol that was so prominently caught in his breath.

"You fucking bastard." Damon spit the words out before shoving the guy to the ground. He raised a fist and felt absolutely no satisfaction as it pounded into the guy's face. He wasn't using all of his strength, because that would have killed him. Humans were so... fragile. He pushed aside the pang in his heart as he remembered just how fragile they were.

Another blow landed, this time splitting the man's lip. Blood was flowing freely out of his nose, and Damon landed another blow. He could hear it dislocated the man's jaw. Another hit, and another. In the ribs and the stomach.

The guy was now gasping for air, and the man and woman who were by the jeep were now trying to restrain Damon, but he looked at them and snarled ferociously. "You're going to go stand by your jeep and act like you saw nothing." He could feel his pupils dilate as he dictated his will to the pair. Another punch, this one slightly harder than the last.

There was no fight left in the guy, he was taking it. He was either too drunk or too hurt to do anything about his predicament. Damon hoisted him up like a ragdoll. "You're lucky I don't rip your fucking neck out." He shook the guy violently, and when he stopped, his head flew back; he was unconscious. Damon knew he wasn't dead, but he was on the brink of it.

He was going to give him one last final punch, but the man's position reminded him of how Elena's was in the car. It was surprising how fast Damon dropped the guy. But his gaze remained fixed on where he was just moments prior.

"She's dead. She's gone." His words were quiet and weak; the reality was setting in. "Elena isn't coming back." He whispered.

And then he lunged for the man's throat. But he felt a pair of arms drag him back and a cloth was pressed over his mouth. Vervain. Liz came into his view, her eyes full of concern. The vervain didn't hurt him, but it certainly weakened him. His struggle against the two humans holding him back was more of an effort.

"SHE'S DEAD! SHE'S GONE BECAUSE OF HIM!" He roared. Another cloth of vervain, and the world was starting to get drowsy. It was pulled away enough for him to be aware that they placed him against the side of Elena's car.

He was surprised that he hadn't noticed the ambulance lights earlier, but it didn't matter. The man was loaded onto a stretcher, while Elena... _Elena_

He looked up to the open door, the one that he had pried open. Elena was still in the same position she had been five minutes ago. She wasn't breathing. Damon leaned his head against the door; his eyes were filled with tears. The world was no longer blurry because of the vervain. Weakly, he reached up and grabbed Elena's hand. It was limp, but soft.

The tears started to fall as another officer smothered him with vervain. Maybe he was going to wake up and have this all been an awful dream. He was going to wake up and continue talking with Elena about what they were.

He knew that he loved her, and that she felt something for him. And that's all that mattered.

He just had to wake up. They just had to wake up.

But he knew that the moment the car made impact, she never would. This was the last time he would ever touch her, ever be near to her again. And for the first time in a long time, Damon let the tears fall freely before being jabbed with what he assumed was a syringe full of vervain.

He'd loved her so much.

He always would.

**Thank you all for the reviews/follows/favourites, they mean a lot! :) Okay before I get like, angry reviews and such let's just hold on until the next update, okay? ;) **


	6. Make It Without You

**Make It Without You – Andrew Belle**

"_But you know I'll never let this go to waste,_

_I'll keep this memory on the map I trace"_

Damon woke up groggily in a dimly lit room, his vision still blurry. After a few seconds his vision kicked back to normal, and he realized he was in a morgue. _Holy fuck_. She was dead. She was on the table in the middle of the room, lying motionless. It must have been a few hours that he had been out, and Liz had left him there with her.

He couldn't tell if that was cruel or not.

She was still wearing her dress, her eyes were closed and the blood had been pretty much cleared off her body. He must have done something really shitty in a previous life to get dealt the hand he had now. The pain in his heart was unbearable; she was absolutely lifeless, her chest was still, and her heart was silent.

Damon could feel the tears prick at his eyes and he ran his hand anxiously through his hair. A chair was left in the corner of the room, right beside the door. Liz had left him some time alone with Elena before she was gone forever.

He dragged the chair over, trying to hold himself together. It was like watching her sleep, but much more unsettling. Tenderly he ran his fingers over her cheek, cold as ice, but was still smooth to his touch. She'd kissed him earlier in the night with so much passion, which was a feeling he'd never be able to get over.

_Stefan_.

He blamed his brother for this. His hateful words, calling Elena the thing she was most scared of. Katherine. The word was sour on his tongue, because no matter how hurt Stefan was, he had to know that Elena was nothing like her bitchy ancestor. And now she was dead, because of a little jealousy.

Damon had stuck through all of their relationship, never saying a word against Stefan, and certainly never to hurt Elena.

He brushed some of her hair back. It was strange, this girl seemed so strong to him; she'd survived so many deaths; all of her parents', both biological and adoptive, and her aunt. Not to mention the amount of times she'd escaped death. In Damon's eyes she was invincible to anything that opposed her.

A bitter chuckled escaped under his breath.

She was able to survive the supernatural, but a drunk driver took her life in a matter of seconds. Probably right on impact.

He wondered what her last thought was; probably of Stefan and how he'd hurt her enough that she had to leave. Never of him. He didn't deserve it. Forget Stefan, it felt more like Damon was responsible for Elena's death. He should have never let her go home alone. He should have driven her, he should have fought through her protests like he always did.

And this was why. Because when people didn't listen to him, someone ended up in a body bag.

He wanted her to wake up and tell her he was sorry, even for a second. He wanted to tell her how much he loved her, how he wanted to be a better person for her. How he'd even consider letting her drive the camaro if that's what she really wanted.

If only he had been there, he could have saved her... Just a bit of her blood and she could have walked away without a scratch.

"Fuck."

His blood. He'd healed her right before they left for the Lockwood's. She wasn't dead... She was in transition.

She would never forgive him for this. It was because of him that she was going to become one of the undead. A few hours he'd been out... That meant any second she could be waking up. Finding out that she'd been brought back from the other side, now craving the one thing that had saved her.

This felt worse than her death to Damon. She never wanted this, he'd never wanted it for her. No matter how much he loved her he knew he could never have given her what she wanted. A family was out of the question, and he couldn't exactly grow old with her. Maybe in a few years her opinion would have changed, but that was a few years she would have had left to live.

She could have left him by then, realizing there was much better out there. But now? Frozen at eighteen forever? That wasn't what she wanted.

He would have waited for her. Waited for her to be sure of becoming the very thing he wouldn't wish on anyone. He knew the self loathing that was accompanied with the lifestyle of vampirism, and he wouldn't force that on Elena.

The sharp gasp of air caused Damon to nearly jump out of his skin.

"Damon? The car- a man hit me! And I blacked out, and there was blood- why am I on a table?" Damon reached over and pulled her into his arms, savouring the moment. He had to try and soften the blow as much as he could, but how exactly do you exactly break it to someone that they're becoming a vampire? She started to breathe fast in his arms, the gasps were getting more and more intense.

"Elena- Elena look at me." He took her face in his hands and forced her to look at him. "Deep breaths, okay? Breathe." Slowly her irregular gasps for air became normal and she was settling down. Oh god, he didn't want to tell her. It would break her heart, and he couldn't stand to see her hurt like that.

"What is it Damon?" She could see the mood shift in his eyes to desperation and pity; it scared her.

"I'm sorry, Elena. I'm so sorry I should have taken you to the hospital when you cut yourself, I'm so sorry." He wrapped his arms around her, waiting for the words to sink in. The stifled sob into his shirt said enough. "I'm so sorry." He murmured into her ear. God, what was he supposed to do now? They had to get out of the morgue, seeing as Elena was clearly not dead, and he had to keep her away from people, seeing as every single heart beat in the building would drive her nuts. He'd ask Meredith to make up a cover story, and make sure Liz smoothed things over. He'd compel half the town if necessary, but right now they had to get out of there.

"I'm in transition." She whispered. "I'm going to either feed or die. Damon I'm going to be a vampire. Oh my god." She was in full on panic mode now and he could see it in her eyes.

"Listen to me Elena, we're going to get you out of here, and we're going to bring you back to my place and I can get you a blood bag. You don't have to hurt anybody, alright? Just make it through the hospital." She nodded, unsure of what else to do. Damon had one major problem, in that her dress was tattered and bloody; getting her out of the hospital wasn't going to be easy with that.

She was in full out hysterics. The heightened emotions were certainly going to be bothering her, even if she was only in transition. "Damon I don't want to be- I was never supposed to-" He shushed her and wiped away her tears as they fell. He never thought he'd be in this position; he was the bad brother, the one who was supposed to not give a shit about who got hurt. But _she_ had come along and changed all of that. To see her so hurt was earth shattering, only second to when he thought she'd been dead. "I want to go home." She cried.

His ears tingled as he heard footsteps, probably coming down from the hallway that he'd stupidly forgotten to investigate.

"Drunk driving accident. Dead on impact; the man responsible got roughed up pretty well, and will be facing manslaughter." Damon didn't know whether to panic or sigh in relief as he heard Liz Forbes come down the morgue hallway.

Shit. Elena was supposed to be dead. "Listen to me Elena, Caroline's mom is coming, and I'm going to start doing some damage control. Can you stay in here for two minutes? Then I'll be back, I promise. They just can't see you." She bit her lip and nodded, tears still streaming down her face. Damon gently rubbed his thumb on her cheek before speeding over to the door and poking his head out of the doorway.

Liz and two people, doctors, were coming down the hallway, still a good fifteen feet away. He ran up quickly, and grabbed each of the men looking them in the eyes. "You're going to forget all about Elena Gilbert. You were going to grab a coffee but went the wrong way. You never saw Liz Forbes. Now leave." The two men wandered off in a daze, and Liz looked murderous, but when her eyes flickered to the still open door to the morgue, her expression softened.

"I'm sorry Damon, there was nothing I could have done, I've covered for you, that guy has serious damage to him that I barely got them to overlook-"

"We have a problem." He whispered. He had to make his story quick before the two men returned from whatever made up errand Liz had sent them on. "Long story short Elena's not so dead. Some might say she's undead. She died with my blood in her system, and now we have a problem, because I have a transitioning vampire in a place where blood is about as common as germs are on kindergarteners. You have to help me get her out of here."

Liz pushed past Damon to get into the room, and you could see the change in demeanour. She had switched from on duty police woman to mother fully in her element. Damon took a step back and let her do what she needed to. This was Elena, the little girl that had grown up playing with Caroline, and now both of them had joined the supernatural. He watched silently as Liz explained to Elena how they were going to get her out of the morgue and then gave her the light jacket she had been wearing.

"Damon can you carry her out? I can put out a cover story but if she's walking like nothing is wrong people won't be able to overlook it." He nodded silently and scooped her up in his arms. She hadn't uttered a word since he'd left. She looked petrified, her eyes were wide and she looked pale as a ghost.

Elena had never seen Damon stay quiet for so long in her life. He carried her through the hospital halls, ignoring the questioning looks and protests coming from doctors. Elena just stayed silent, her head resting on Damon's chest. She felt sick. Or at least she thought she felt sick. Everything hurt, her head was killing her, her stomach felt unsettled, and above that she felt parched. She tried to convince herself that all she needed was a glass of water, but she knew that wasn't the case.

She bit her lip to keep her from bawling. The tears were there, and she could feel them, but she couldn't let them go, not like this. It was going to be hard enough to explain her miraculous return to the living if she didn't look hysterical while doing so.

She tried to keep her mind off her bodies needs. She shut her eyes, trying to block out the fuzzy bright light that came from the fixtures in the hospital. The annoying hum of the fluorescent lights was getting to her. The constant murmurs coming from all directions made everything seem like it was going to explode. She knew she didn't have all the powers of a vampire yet, but they were there, begging to be given in to.

Then she smelt it. Within seconds a flurry of panic washed through the hallway as a man was being pushed through on a gurney, doctors and nurses surrounding him. He was bleeding profusely and looked like a surgery gone wrong. Damon tightened his grip on her body, not letting her move. But the scent of blood was so strong; she could feel her gums aching as the vampire teeth begged to be released.

She just wanted a taste.

No. She couldn't think like that, she had to get home. But it was so hard to not resist Damon and go after the man. "Damon..." Her voice was strangled and weak. She tried to fight it, but she could feel something inside her switch.

"Liz we have a problem." Damon said.

Elena pried her eyes away as they manoeuvred around the guy, doctors trying to stop the bleeding coming from his side. Out of lack of desperation, she bit into Damon's shoulder to give her mind some kind of a release. It wasn't hard, or enough to draw blood, but the pain in her mouth resided a little and her brain focused on something else.

As soon as they hit a deserted corridor, Damon vamp speeded to the nearest exit, Elena finally releasing his shoulder. In the dark of the night, she couldn't hold back her tears. God she was sick of crying. "I don't want to do this Damon. I don't want to hurt people. I can't. I can't hurt anyone through this."

"I know you don't Elena."

"What if I told you I wanted to die?" The last word hitched in her throat through her sobs. To be immortal, forever having to feed off the living to maintain her own life? "What if I just don't feed?" She could see his heart break in his eyes, but like Damon always did, he pushed it back. He always put himself second when it came to her.

"Then Matt, Caroline and Bonnie are down another person they love. Alaric loses one of the closest things he has to a family. Even Stefan loses one of the people he cares most about in the world. And what about Jeremy? He's going to lose yet another family member. He's going to have one more grave to visit, one more person to mourn. One more person to add to the dead weight in his heart." He shrank down against the outer wall of the hospital with her still in his arms, probably waiting for Liz to catch up. "And I don't think I can deal with losing you again." He sounded almost guilty, saying that he was afraid of losing her.

"I can't risk losing control, Damon. If I kill someone-"

He shook his head. "You won't. Caroline, Bonnie, Stefan, Alaric; they'll all make sure that you don't hurt anyone. You'll be in control."

"And what about you?"

He flashed her a weak grin. "You think I'm a prime example of self control?" He snorted. She couldn't help but let out the smallest of giggles.

"Have you met your brother? Last time I checked he was still getting off his Ripper binge." The sarcasm came easily, and for just a second, she imagined herself back in her kitchen making potatoes and chicken for dinner while Jer and Alaric played video games. Damon would tease her for putting the potatoes in without turning on the oven, and would make sure to rub it in that he was a far superior cook.

But when Liz opened the door, she snapped back into reality.

"Damon you have to get her home, I'll get to her medical files and clean this whole situation up. If anyone asks, Elena was in the hospital after the accident, but you decided to take her home and make sure she healed there. If anyone asks any questions, don't go into it." Damon thanked Liz and then within a minute he and Elena were at the boarding house.

"Damon can I just go home, please?" She wasn't in the mood to deal with Stefan if he was there.

"Don't worry, my brother isn't home. He's probably out terrorizing the wildlife. It's become his new night time hobby." Damon pushed through the door into the house, and in a flash he'd grabbed something from the table and dumped it into the sink. "Blood. I must have left it out from earlier."

"What time is it?" She asked. A couple hours she'd been out, and that left less than a day of her human – kind of – existence.

"A little past midnight." Damon walked up to her, rubbing his shoulder. "For a girl in transition, you sure bite hard. Was that completely necessary?" She scoffed. Better she give Damon a little pain that he could handle then completely vamping out in front of a team of doctors and their dying patient.

"Sorry." She shrugged off Liz's jacket, leaving it by the front door. Her dress was tattered and stained with blood. The sight of her own blood on her made her feel slightly nauseous, the stains a reminder that for the third time in her life she'd escaped a situation that she should have died in. Maybe the universe was trying to tell her something.

"I can grab you something to wear if that's making you uncomfortable." Elena followed him upstairs and sat patiently on his bed while Damon rifled through his drawers trying to find something suitable. He settled on a black v neck and a pair of plaid pyjama bottoms, tossing them to her while he continued to find something for himself.

"Thanks." Elena went into the bathroom, eager to get out of the dress. It made her feel tainted, unclean. A sense of calm washed over her when she pulled Damon's shirt over herself. It smelled like him and was soft against her skin. It was rather big on her, coming down to the middle of her thighs, but pyjama bottoms were still a necessity.

She wanted to say it was because she didn't trust Damon, but truth be told she didn't trust herself. For a half second she allowed herself to feel like a normal teenager; her biggest problem was not knowing about how she felt about a guy. The one who had slowly crept into her heart and refused to let go. He was the one that never let her go and had been by her side every step of the way. They'd changed since they first met, partially because of each other. But then it came to her that Damon was a vampire, and she was possibly going to be one too.

It was the supernatural that caused that, and Elena knew that no matter how hard she tried to avoid that aspect of her life, there was no way she could ever be a normal teenage girl.

After all, what normal teenage girl has to pick between vampirism and death?

She stuffed the ruined dress in the garbage; it was a shame because after spending a whole afternoon shopping with Caroline for the perfect dress, she'd fallen in love with that one. If she hadn't have died- just thinking about it sent a shiver down her spine- it would have held happy memories.

Dancing with Damon, kissing Damon. Who was now shirtless while he looked in drawers for something Elena wasn't quite sure of. "What are you looking for?"

"Blankets. I'll crash on the couch tonight."

Her heart began to pound. She wasn't going to make him stay on the couch, but the knots in her stomach began forming when she thought of sharing a bed with him. "I'll take the couch, its fine." She felt bad enough, him carrying her out of the hospital, and now being her babysitter.

Of course he wasn't having any of it. After a rather pointless argument, Elena agreed to take the bed, on the condition that if Damon was uncomfortable, they would switch. Even if he was, she knew he'd never actually switch with her, but it was a small victory.

Twenty minutes later, Elena was still tossing and turning. Her mind wouldn't flick off; she kept picturing things. Old memories from her childhood, recent ones. Human memories. The decision that was set before her was swirling around in her mind. Her leg was shaking restlessly, and she clutched one of the pillows tightly, trying to relieve some of the emotion in her. Her heart ached; and even though she felt like she should be crying, Elena wouldn't let the tears fall.

When she got up, dragging the pillow with her, Elena felt like a child who was sneaking into their parents room after a bad dream; who sought comfort after being scared out of their wits.

She found Damon on the couch, the lamp light beside him on, and a glass of blood in his hand. He was swirling it around like a drink, and a book was in his other hand. His hair was sticking up at odd angles, like he too had tried to sleep, but realized after a while the attempt was futile.

He hadn't noticed her presence yet, and he casually flipped the page.

"I can't sleep." She murmured. He closed the book and placed his cup of blood on the side table. Elena was acutely aware of just how close it was to her.

He was clad in a deep blue sweater and had a pair of sweat pants on. She wasn't even aware that Damon Salvatore owned a pair of sweat pants.

She could see his eyes flash quickly towards the glass of blood, but Elena made sure to situate herself on the opposite side of the couch. "I'm sorry for all of this." Damon said the words so quietly she had to do a double take before realizing that he was apologizing to her. "If I hadn't have fed you my blood, you would just be dead. You were never supposed to be in this position."

Elena shook her head and scooted closer to him. Tenderly, she put her hand on his cheek. This was all new territory for her, being openly affectionate with Damon. She was used to letting it bottle up, keeping her feelings to herself until it resulted in some serious sexual tension between the two of them. But it was nice, being able to comfort him. "You don't have to be sorry, Damon, this isn't your fault. It's that guy who was drunk, he shouldn't have been driving. It was an accident, okay?"

"I shouldn't have offered my blood Elena, you don't know what it means-"

"I'm well aware of the meaning of blood sharing, Damon. And I know that you didn't offer me your blood for that reason, I know that you did it to stop me from hurting. Don't try and pin this on yourself when you have no reason to."

She wasn't sure if it was because she was in transition that everything seemed a lot more intense; the light from the lamp, the blue in Damon's eyes, the scent of bourbon on his lips. Even her own skin felt strange, as if it was waiting for something else to happen. That, she knew had to do with the glass sitting an arm's length away.

"If I turn, I always thought it would be this huge change, but I don't think it will be. I'll still be myself, I'll just crave human blood and have super powers, but other than that I'll be myself. Right?" What had started out as a confident statement now sounded unsure. "I'm not sure if I'm trying to talk myself into this or not. But if I turn, I can do this some more." Gently she pressed her lips against Damon's. His surprise was evident, and within a couple seconds he pulled away.

"Don't turn for me; it's not worth it, Elena."

"If I do, then I can still be Jeremy's big sister, and I can still be friends with Bonnie and Caroline, Matt, and maybe Stefan one day. And I can make sure that Alaric doesn't remain Mystic Falls' day drunk forever. You're just a bonus." Without hesitation, she tucked herself into Damon's chest, snuggling up into his warm embrace. His hand lazily traced patterns on her leg while they sat in silence, glancing at the fire.

"Can I be selfish for a moment?" He whispered into her ear. She nodded. "I don't want you to die Elena. I had a flash of that earlier this evening, and it wasn't one of my favourite experiences. I know I'll love you whether you're a human or a vampire, you'll still be Elena to me." Her body relaxed at his words, they put her mind at ease. If she did turn, she still wanted to be herself, and it comforted her that he would still think of her that way. She'd changed so much from the girl who drowned at Wickery Bridge. That girl was dead now. And if she turned into a vampire, so would human Elena. But seeing how things had gone, maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing.

"But please do this for yourself. You always put other people above yourself and that's one of the many reasons why I love you, but this, you have to make sure you are one hundred percent confident in your decision."

It dawned on her that in the past year, everything that she'd ever wanted had been taken from her. Her family was now gone, except for her brother. Her normal experience as a teenager had been robbed by the supernatural. Even kids were a testy subject with Klaus around, because Elena knew somewhere down her line, she would subject one of her descendants to being used as a human blood bag for Klaus to use at his own disclosure. And now that he'd found Elena, if she had kids, he wasn't going to let the Petrova line out of his sight. Even if there was some way out of transitioning, she could never have what she once wanted. Deep down she'd always had a feeling that it would come down to this; to the calling of the red substance but a few feet from her.

Had she not been born a Doppelganger, or had the supernatural not existed, she would have probably graduated high school and gone to the local university, and married her high school sweetheart. They would have had an average life, and then eventually adopted a dog and had a couple kids.

That life wasn't an option for her now. She knew that she could never be happy with that life with what had happened. It couldn't happen. Not anymore. And in that moment, her decision was made.

She licked her lips and carefully reached over and grabbed the tumbler full of blood, slowly bringing it up to her mouth. She was sure of this. It was the only way. Because truthfully she didn't want to die. And she trusted everyone around her to keep her from hurting someone.

"Elena..." She cut him off by pushing her hand into his chest, distancing them.

"Damon, you feed or you die. That's the drill, everyone knows it." She said, staring into the glass.

Her breathing was ragged as the intoxicating scent filled her nostrils. And then the substance was on her tongue. It didn't taste like it used to; she was expecting the coppery, metallic tang that you got when you sucked on a paper cut. This tasted like nothing she could describe, but it was good. It was satisfying and addictive and calming all at the same time.

She slammed the glass down on the table as she felt the veins below her eyes began to form. It tickled and felt like when her hair was brushing up against her face. Her gums killed though, the vampire teeth that had been dormant broke through, ready to prey upon an unsuspecting victim. Her vision flashed, and was now enhanced, ready to detect the slightest of movements.

When Damon tried to get her to look at him, she turned away. She could get it under control. She had to learn to control this side of her so she didn't end up like Stefan. It wasn't working. All she could think about was how she just wanted another sip of blood.

"Elena look at me." Damon's voice was stern but gentle at the same time. She allowed him to turn her head to his with his fingertips. "You can rein it in, Elena. Watch." In a split second she watched as Damon's face started to match hers, the purplish blue veins becoming more prominent and the fangs burst through his gums.

A little voice in the back of her head brought up the point of how attractive he looked, but it felt a little weird to say so, so she kept her comment to herself.

Damon took a breath and she watched as he fought back his vampire side, everything disappearing and he was back to normal. After he was done he nodded to her. She looked into his eyes and though about how he'd just calmed down and focused on pushing it back, so she did.

It took about a minute, but she felt kind of back to normal, physically. But after pushing back the bloodlust, she was hit with everything else. And she wasn't exactly sure what everything else was, but it was like she felt everything at once, all the feelings of anger, anxiety, happiness, giddiness, sadness washed over her like a tidal wave. After a few seconds of being really confused, they seemed to settle down.

When she looked at Damon, however, she felt this overwhelming hunger. And she was pretty sure it wasn't for blood. Maybe just a little. She as hyper aware of everything going on with him; how his eyes were studying her, how now that she was sitting on her knees and looking at him like he was a new toy he looked rather confused.

Something itched at her mind, about what he'd said earlier. Blood sharing. Stefan had mentioned what it meant for humans and vampires, but what was it like for vampires together? At the thought she could swear she felt her pulse pound, and Damon's blood from earlier seared in her system.

She almost laughed to herself, realizing how funny she felt right now. Her thoughts were going so fast she couldn't settle on one thing for too long. She'd just gone from mourning the life she would never have to thinking about how she wanted the raven haired vampire in front of her. "Damon. I think my emotions are doing that heightened thing right now." He smirked and pulled her into his arms playfully.

"Don't worry, I won't let you get too crazy, okay? Besides, there are a lot of fun things we can do to keep your mind off your crazy emotions." Elena almost choked, but he continued. "I can teach you to compel people, or run through a forest at top speed. It'll be fun." She was really expecting him to start listing off things of a completely different variety, but he didn't. The thought brought her back to the memory of her biting him earlier. A bit of his neck was exposed underneath his sweater and her mind absent mindedly trailed to it.

"I'm going to go grab you something to drink." Damon said, getting up off the couch. Without knowing her own strength, Elena grabbed his arm and pulled him back down beside her.

"And why would you do that?"

Damon had an impish grin on his face as he tantalizingly straddled Elena. His lips trailed along her jaw line before resting at her ear. "Because you're looking at my neck like you want to bite it, and the last thing I need to deal with is a new vampire who's on a blood sharing high."

She scoffed. "That's right, tease the new vampire, really smart."

"You're just frustrated because you want me. Blood will help." He said, quickly before climbing off her.

"And what makes you think I want you?" Her counter was a weak one, but she couldn't just stay silent.

"Because when I was turned I wanted to screw just about every girl I looked at." He called as he jogged down into the cellar. When he returned a few seconds later, he tossed a blood bag at her. Surprisingly, she caught it. She tried to sip it slowly, and for the most part succeeded. She placed the empty bag on the table. "So want to explain to me how a blood bond works between two vampires? I kind of get the just of it between a human and a vampire."

They repositioned themselves on the couch so Elena was lying on Damon's chest, and in between his legs. "Think sex. Except until the blood is pretty much out of your system you feel... Extremely attached to that person. Very intimate." He drew out the last word, running his hand along Elena's side, settling on an exposed piece of skin where his shirt rode up against the couch. He drew slow circles and gradually ran his hand under the shirt.

"Can you not do that right now?" She asked.

"Why. Is it bothering you?" The smugness in his voice annoyed Elena. He always liked teasing her, and now he knew exactly how to do it.

"It's only bothering me because you won't act on it, which I'm not sure why."

"I'm not going to sleep with you now Elena, because trust me for the next couple weeks you'll be out of control with this kind of thing. Once your feelings settle down, then we can talk. I don't want us to be based off anything that isn't real." It felt like they were putting things on break for a bit, even though nothing had really started. But she wasn't going to be dissuaded.

Elena turned around so she was now straddling him. "But if you listened to anything Caroline had said you would know that I already felt this way..."

"You might have wanted me, but you wouldn't have slept with me Elena." Her eyes narrowed, mainly because she knew he was right. That was a bit of a buzz kill. She might have thought about it, but she would have never slept with him under any of the circumstances that had presented themselves.

She sighed and snuggled herself into him yet again. Her face was pressed into his chest and she inhaled deeply. This felt good, being with him like this.

"Tomorrow I'm going to ask Bonnie to make you a daylight ring, and until then you can just lay low here. Also you'll have to stay out of the public eye for a few weeks. You were supposed to almost die in a car accident." The idea of staying alone didn't appeal to her, and she knew she couldn't go home to where Jeremy and Alaric were. She didn't want to hurt either of them. "Caroline will probably be by after Liz tells her what happened. You won't be alone, I promise." He soothingly played with her hair while she tried to calm her thoughts. She was a vampire now. It felt surreal. "Look at me." She looked up at him and he kissed her chastely. "I won't let anything bad happen to you, and I won't let you hurt anyone, Elena. I promise."

She shook her head in agreement. "I know."

"Try and sleep. I'll take care of everything tomorrow. You can call your brother when you get up. I know you're worried about him." It was strange, seeing Damon acting all protective, like he was. The protectiveness she was used to, but this was a different type. Like she was his responsibility. He probably felt like he was the reason she had turned, after all she had ingested his blood.

As her mind began to fog over, Elena made a mental note to talk to him about that in the morning. There'd be a lot to talk about in the morning. She'd have to explain how everything happened, and she'd have to get used to being undead. But at the moment she felt calm over anything else, due to being tucked into Damon's arms.

For the first time in a long time, she felt perfectly at ease.

**Wooo this chapter is long, hope you all enjoyed it. Also there will be no sire bond because I feel like it adds nothing to the story, so yay! There will be other... complication... type things though, as all stories must have. Thanks for the favourites/follows/reviews ! I'll update soon :)**


	7. Skinny Love

**Skinny Love – Bon Iver**

"_And in the morning I'll be with you,_

_But it will be a different kind."_

Damon brought the glass of bourbon up to his lips as he looked icily across the room. She was laughing as her and Jeremy watched some comedy movie. It probably wasn't even funny, all of them were the same. After a century and a half these things all tend to blur together. Or maybe that was just the alcohol. While Elena was now in semi residence at the Salvatore boarding house, it was only a temporary situation until she got her thirst under control.

She'd been pretty good so far. One minor slip up, but Damon disregarded that. It had only been two days, and being the stubborn girl she was, she insisted that she go to the grocery store to grab something so they could have something other than pasta and pizza for dinner.

Damon took another swig of his drink, draining the glass. It had been a little taste, the kid was being an idiot and was skateboarding down an alley. Who the hell tries to skateboard off a wall? He'd stopped her before she'd gotten remotely close to draining him, but still.

"_She'd hurt someone." _

Ugh. He could hear Stefan's annoying voice ringing in his mind. Big fucking deal, Damon had killed countless people in his life, taking a bite out of some losers neck isn't going to scar him for the rest of his life. Thanks to Damon he doesn't even remember it.

Saint Stefan, who had taken over trying to mold Elena into his perfect vampire protégé. Anybody within twenty feet could tell that she was annoyed with him. The only reason she was putting up with him was because she felt bad after breaking his heart and ruining their "epic" romance. He was only helping her because he was plagued with a sense of guilt that rivaled the feeling that came along with killing bambi's mother. It was like their relationship… friendship… whatever it was, had been built on the foundation of a mutual pity party. Pathetic.

What she needed was to learn how to hunt and not feel bad about a little human cuisine for dinner.

The stuff from bags worked, but would you rather have leftovers warmed up in the microwave or a gourmet meal? There was a wide margin separating indulgence and being a mass murderer. Neither of which really bothered him.

The thought crossed Damon's mind that maybe he'd just join Ric at the Grille for the night, but then he remembered he was on babysitting duty.

"_You have to make sure she doesn't hurt anyone, especially Jer."_

Blondie's voice was nearly annoying as his brothers. Elena didn't need coddling; she needed to be pushed out of the nest like a baby bird. She could fly on her own, people just had to stop mistaking her for some weak little girl. He'd seen it in the days after she turned. Vampire Elena was much more headstrong. She was willing to go after what she wanted and wasn't afraid to do so.

His mind flashed back to when she'd inquired about blood sharing. Ha. As if she wasn't already tempting enough; but him denying her anything worked. Things always ended up like they were currently. The moment something went wrong she would scamper off with her tail tucked between her legs. It was strange, because the girl he had gotten a glimpse of wouldn't have put up with all the bull shit her friends were putting her through. Poor innocent Elena hurt someone. She might hurt her brother; Damon, _you_ have to watch her to make sure she doesn't rip his neck apart!

He snorted as he went shuffling through his cupboard. Jeremy could be bleeding from the neck and she would be the one to pick up him and run him to the hospital. She'd sooner go sunbathing then hurt her brother.

If anything he was the safest out of any of them.

The booze was gone, and Damon was bored. Especially since Elena had been treating him like he was the plague since she'd gotten a little 'out of control'. If that's what they wanted to call out of control. She hadn't spoken to him in over a week. Nothing out of a few polite words when absolutely necessary.

Eye contact was rare, and she spent most of her time on the opposite side of the house. For the most part she'd stayed over at Caroline or Bonnie's, but at least twice the girls had a slumber party. Oh the joy. Thank god for Ric, otherwise Damon might have personally gone down and kicked them out. Girl gossip was so boring. Unless it was about him.

Tonight was the first time in a while that she was going to be spending a night alone. After a huge fight she'd taken residence of the couch, much to Damon's displeasure. It's not like he could do anything about it anymore, since the moment he opened his mouth she'd make up some excuse and scurry off to do absolutely nothing but come up with a new reason to get away from him.

What was the big fucking deal? So he'd been on Elena duty and let her munch on a guy for a minute or two. Big whoop. Now he was getting the silent treatment for it? If she thought he was going to come groveling at her feet or something, she was absolutely wrong.

He'd had enough of their cat and mouse game. Mainly because he was always the cat, and every time Elena slipped out of his grasp he got more and more frustrated. In more way then one.

The movie credits were rolling, and Jeremy was saying his goodbyes. He had to go pick Ric up from the Grille and let him pass out on the couch before it got too late for him to wake up without still being drunk. Apparently that happened a lot.

Damon put his tumbler in the dishwasher before speeding upstairs. He didn't need to say goodnight, they were beyond the point of that routine. Damon got upstairs and switched into a pair of sweatpants before getting into bed. He grasped for the current book he was reading, The Catcher in the Rye.

He loved reading, especially the classics. He went through a couple of books a week, and had done so ever since he was a kid. A habit his mother had gotten him into after giving him a book for his birthday. Stefan had gotten a notebook. One brother was a writer, the other a reader.

As he turned the pages, the time flew by and nearly an hour later he turned to flick the lamp off, only to find Elena standing right in front of him, causing Damon to nearly jump out of his skin. "Can I help you?"

"Can I please sleep in here tonight?" Her mumbling was so quiet that had he not been a vampire, he would have missed it all together.

He stared blankly at her, waiting for the punch line. "So a week of silence for a stupid reason, and now I'm expected to let you hop into bed with me? Sorry but I'm not a bed and breakfast, you can't just come and go as you please."

"It's not because of the guy I bit, Damon." She shuffled side to side awkwardly, shifting her weight from one foot to another. She was wearing her own pajama bottoms that Jeremy had brought over the day after her transition, but still remained in Damon's shirt from the first night. "Please?"

"The others might be treating you like you're some fragile piece of glass Elena, but I know you better. The couch is perfectly fine, after you fought over it with me for so long. I could have just taken it back without asking but I know you'd be stubborn enough to make a fuss over it. Now it's all yours."

She turned away, her arms crossed. Before the door shut, she looked at him over her shoulder. "Wouldn't be the first time you took something without my permission." Her tone was icy, but he could hear the indecision that she was trying so hard to suppress.

He was supposed to be the one that said things with double meanings, not her. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that one of the perks of my transition has been getting any memories that I'd been missing back."

Shit. Right, he'd totally forgotten. But that made absolutely no sense; her stupid fit was over a couple of memories, that didn't even matter anymore?

"Did you ever think to mention that we met first, or that you told me you _loved_ me when you did? Do you realize how different things could be if you'd left them be?"

Damon rolled his eyes. He'd though about this a lot, and he'd always come to the exact same conclusion. "Things would be different Elena, yes, but they'd be bad. Do you know why? Because when I met you, I was a bad guy. I was still- what I thought was- in love with Katherine. We might have flirted, and maybe I would have seen you the next day. But we would have been together for all the wrong reasons."

He could see her try to interject as she crossed back into his bedroom and stomped over beside him, but he raised a finger, silencing her. "And if I'd left you after I told you I loved you, I would have been the selfish dick who tried to steal his brothers girl. You had to come to me, Elena. This is how things were supposed to go, because even though I'm a selfish asshole, I'm less of one since we met. And we were friends, we had that element of trust before anything else. If I'd let you keep that memory of us meeting first, you and I would have been exactly what you and Stefan were."

Any anger from her face had vanished, and slowly she sat on the edge of the bed. "You see yourself in such a dark light, when you're really not. You've always had this good inside of you; you proved that from our very first encounter. Had you been as evil as you said, you would have just used me as a substitute Katherine. And maybe you have a point about us being who we are now, but you're not selfish. An asshole at times, yes, but you're not the monster you make yourself out to be. Why don't you let people see the good in you?"

The question surprised him. He'd expected this to go in an entirely different direction. The good inside him? He knew she was being serious, and it took him all of his willpower not to respond with something witty. He knew the answer, and it had always been the reason for the wall he put up. "Because when people see good, they expect good. And I don't want to live up to anyone's expectations."

Elena's eyes flitted down to her fidgeting hands. "My expectations."

Especially hers, though he would never say it out loud.

"I know what you mean. Have you seen what I've been subjected to the past week and a half?" Even though she looked strong, Damon could tell when for just a fraction of a second she let herself fall through the cracks. "You're right. I'm not a piece of glass, even if I'm being treated like one. But ever since my parents died, I feel like I've had something to prove. An expectation to live up to, the perfect image of the girl who can smile through adversity and get on with life. There's not a whole lot of breathing room there, and if I fuck up I'm treated like its all okay, and you got blamed for my mistake, so I'm sorry for that."

"Elena…"

"I'm not done. I don't want to let anyone down, and even if I do what I want, I'm letting my friends down, and I don't want to do that." She was starting to break, and Damon internally groaned. He couldn't leave her like this, all sad and mopey. He sighed and grabbed her by the waist, pulling her onto the other side of the bed.

"The night you turned, you were the Elena that I always see when I'm with you; the one who's not afraid to make a choice for herself once in a while. She doesn't put up with anyone's shit. But the moment you're with everyone else, you're still you, but you keep that part of you inside, and I don't understand why." He watched as she gently laid her head down on the pillow beside him. "That's why I push you around Elena. I'm not afraid to annoy the hell out of you because I know deep down you'll fight back."

A tiny smile crept across her face. "You're not a bad guy at all, Damon Salvatore." She whispered. "And don't think for a second that you have to live up to any expectations, because you don't. I like you how you are. So thanks for annoying the hell out of me from time to time."

Why was this so difficult? One minute she's ignoring him, and the next their having a heart to heart. Ugh, he was becoming soft. Damon needed something to keep up the bad boy image he had going for him. He liked it. But he liked Elena more.

One thing he was certain of was that she needed to learn to be a real vampire, because at some point she was going to have to feed on someone. "I'm going to teach you how to hunt this weekend. We'll go out of town and I'll teach you how to be a proper vampire."

"No bunnies?"

Damon chuckled. "No bunnies, I promise. And I swear I won't let you kill anyone, okay?"

"Okay." It took a few seconds for her to respond; Damon could see her beginning to drift off to sleep, her eye lids heavy. She looked so innocent and carefree. He wondered if before everything happened this was what she looked like. Like a normal teenager with the normal amount of teenage drama.

"Good night, Elena." Her breathing dropped off, and Damon could tell that she was passed out. For the first time in a week he drifted off to sleep easily, content with the situation he was in. There was nothing romantic about it; and that's what he felt set them apart. They were friends above everything else, and when they were together they felt right.

He smiled contentedly at the thought.


End file.
